Marc Myers writes daily on jazz legends and legendary jazz recordings

July 2011

July 31, 2011

Last week, Living Blues magazine announced the results of its 18th annual Living Blues Awards. In its Reader's Poll category, the Best Blues Album of 2010 (Historical Recording) went to Dinah Washington: The Fabulous Miss D! The Keystone, Decca, & Mercury Singles 1943-1953 (Hip-OSelect/UMe). I wrote the liner notes. Hats off to Universal producer and vice president of A&R Harry Weinger. It's a terrific set. For the full list of winners, go here. For the box set, go here.

Frank Foster. In the wake of my post last week on the late tenor saxophonist Frank Foster, singer-lyricist and producer Morgan Ames (Deedle's Blues, Quietly There) sent along the follow note:

"Frank and I wrote a song in the late '80s when I co-produced an album for Diane Schuur and the Basie Band. GRP Records' Larry Rosen had asked me to write a song for Diane that would have the effect of It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)—but not be that song.

"I immediately got a headache. The whole project was a classic last-minute rush. Before I knew it, we were all on our way to Japan to tour the CD's songs, all of which I had chosen or written with Diane's input—just days or weeks beforehand. The idea was to introduce the songs on the road and then record in the studio and tape live for video at the end. [Pictured: Morgan Ames]

"I had most of the freshly copied, not-yet-played band charts on the plane with me. To meet Larry's challenge, I came up with You Can Have It at the start of the flight. Then I walked over to Frank's seat and gave him the lyrics, telling him about Larry's suggestion, and went back to my seat to sleep.

"Halfway through the Japan tour, Frank brought in the song one night and sang it down for Diane. It must have been a hair-raising assignment, even for Frank, considering the model had already been written and arranged by Duke Ellington. As Larry had said, 'Do it like that but don't do it like that.' Now I understand why it took Frank half the tour to write and arrange it.

"Besides the lyric, all I said to Frank was that it had to be fast. His chart still blows me away. It was all that and a bag of chips. The CD, Diane Schuur and the Count Basie Orchestra, remained at No. 1 on the Billboard jazz chart for 32 weeks, Diane won a Grammy for Jazz Vocalist of the Year, and Frank won a Grammy for Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocals. And we got to keep our publishing, too!"

Pops on stage.Terry Teachout is a busy guy. In addition to serving as the Wall Street Journal's drama critic, he also writes arts criticism for a variety of publications and recently authored Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong. And then there were the two opera librettos (he's working on a third). And he's currently writing a Duke Ellington biography. In the remaining minutes of each day, Terry [pictured] managed to write a play, Satchmo at the Waldorf. It opens on September 15 in Orlando, Fla., starring Dennis Neal, centering on Armstrong's last performance in 1971 before his death. For more information, go here.

Fran Landesman (1927-2011), who is best known for writing the lyrics to Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most and Ballad of the Sad Young Men, died last week. Rather than say more, let me quote from my interview with Jackie Cain, who with husband Roy Kral, put Landesman [pictured] on the map.

JazzWax: In 1955 you were the first to record Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most. Did you know the song's composer?Jackie Cain: Actually we did. We had met Tommy Wolf in St. Louis in 1954. Tommy had come to hear us at a local club. After we finished, he came up and introduced himself to us. He was very ecstatic about what we had done, and he told us we were great and how much he loved our work. He made us feel real good. He pointed out parts of the song that he liked best. Some things we did were contrapuntal, and we used a lot of harmony and we went in and out of harmony. So there was a lot to listen to. Tommy got it all.

JW: What happened next?JC: Tommy asked us to come see him at the Crystal Palace nearby, where he was the house pianist. The Crystal Palace was co-owned by the husband of lyricist Fran Landesman. Fran would write lovely lyrics and Tommy would put them to music. So we went over to hear him at the Crystal Palace on our night off. [Photo of Fran Landesman seated atop the piano and Tommy Wolf at the keyboard]

JW: How was Tommy?JC: Seeing him perform was an eye-opener. He was doing all these wonderful original tunes he had written with Fran. Tommy played and sang at the piano. His songs written with Fran included Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most, You Inspire Me and I Love You Real. Their songs were very clever and sounded as if they had been written for us. After the set, Tommy told us about Fran.

JW: What did you tell him?JC: We asked Tommy to send us a copy of Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most. He said many people had wanted to record it since he and Fran wrote it [in 1952] but that no one ever did.

JW: Why?JC: Tommy said it was too avant-garde for some audiences. Which is true. It's not an easy song. It has become an underground hit and standard just by being done by so many artists who do it love it. The lyrics don’t circle back and repeat. It’s not like a true pop song. It’s poignant, beautiful and one big, long story.

Still hungry for Helen? Last week, I forgot to share with you my favorite Helen Shapiro hit, Stop and You'll Become Aware. By the way, a Comment that was posted during the week about a rock concert performance in the '80s was spam and has been removed. Dig the jazz bass opener here...

The World of the Teenager. Back in 1966, Frank De Felitta, director Raymond De Felitta's father, filmed a documentary on the restless teenage youth culture in Lexington, Mass., for NBC. For more about the documentary, go here. You'll find the documentary here...

Cool.Dig this funny clip that past president of the New Jersey Jazz Society Joe Lang sent along. It's a jape on today's digital social networking world, set to the music of West Side Story...

CD discovery of the week. Pianist Junior Mance's Letter From Home (Jun Glo Music) was recorded live at Cafe Loup in New York this past March. The album features Junior, 82, in a robust funky-gospel mood. He's joined by Hide Tanaka on bass, Kim Garey on drums, Ryan Anselmi on tenor sax and Andrew Hadro on baritone sax. Junior gives Home on the Range a deep, soulful treatment, recasting it as a prairie companion to John Brown's Body. Junior also adds fire to Ellington-Strayhorn's Sunset and the Mocking Bird and A Flower Is a Lovesome Thing. You'll find this one here.

Oddball album cover of the week. Last week, Julie London was under covers asking for the record-buyer's phone number. This week, a tarty party model is shown in a house of blue lights reposing for a Dick Garcia album from 1956. And quite a superb album by the guitarist at that. Unclear is whether our model is returning Garcia's call or leaving him a message. Either way, that pre-cordless receiver looks like it weighs a ton. I'll leave it to the shrinks to figure out why photographing a woman in bed with a phone sold records.

July 29, 2011

Here is a killer reed section (click once on the image to enlarge). It's the sax section from Lionel Hampton's band at a theater in late November or early December 1945. I'm going to take a crack at musicians (of course, if there are differing opinions, please let me know or post a Comment):

I've pinpointed the month by checking Hampton's discography. Fields was with Hampton through the end of November 1945, when he won the Metronome Poll and left the band to freelance and start his own orchestra. I'm guessing Fields guested here just after Plater and Kynard came on, replacing Fields and Gus Evans.

This photo comes to me from Betty's fabulous collection of photos, sent along by her friend Chris. Betty has donated all of her prints, including this one, to Rutgers University's Institute of Jazz Studies. But since she and Chris also are big JazzWax readers, they wanted you to see them, too.

Want more JazzSnaps? Go to the right-hand column of JazzWax and scroll down to "JazzSnaps" for links.

July 28, 2011

Frank Foster, whose pouncing tenor sax and swinging arranging style helped update Count Basie's New Testament Band with a seemingly endless stream of blues surprises from 1953 onward, died on July 26 in Chesapeake, VA. He was 82.

In a band crowded with saxophone talent, Foster and Frank Wess anchored the reed section like a pair of library lions, roaring with a sound so confident, moody and wily that no other orchestra could duplicate its natural feel and collective phrasing.

Foster's great skill as an arranger rested with his ability to weave a call and response technique throughout entire pieces without ever seeming dull or repetitive. In many cases, Foster's charts would have the saxes introduce and carry the melody line, while the trombones muttered or sneezed replies and the trumpets high-fived them for good measure.

The result was a modern conversational arranging technique that emulated banter heard in black barbershops rather than the church. With Foster, this salon was always humming, with roaring horns tempered by suede-smooth reeds and the sound of Basie's "scissors" always snipping away. Foster's arrangements didn't sound complex but they were deceptive, requiring precise and emotional playing that seemed to hurtle forward, even when taken at mid-tempo.

When Foster soloed, he could charge ahead, drag a note or hit a high wail while producing miraculous ideas at high speed. In some ways, his solos sounded like he was making an elaborate sandwich while standing in the aisle of a fast moving train, without losing his balance or dropping a thing.

On his arrangement, while the reeds ran their lines, other instruments uttered their own blues statements that were variations on the melody line. What's more, his charts always could be counted on to end with a big build up and a walloping crescendo, producing an emotional thrill for the listener.

Among Foster's many great jazz compositions and arrangements for Basie were Shiny Stockings, Blues in Hoss's Flat, Didn't You and Back to the Apple. Like many of Basie's men, Foster recorded prolifically on the side as a leader and sideman between Basie's big band tours and record dates.

On the list of most underrated tenor saxophonists of the 1950s, Foster is surely at or near the top. Long hidden in the Basie band, Foster was a master craftsman and a buzz of enthusiasm. The genius of his ideas, the force of his phrasing and agility of his eely style can be heard best on his early small-group leadership dates and later leadership recordings in the '60s. On these recordings, you get to hear why he was much more than he seemed—as great as he was in Basie's sax section.

Here are eight of my favorite Frank Foster albums (there are many more)...

July 27, 2011

Helen Shapiro and Amy Winehouse had a few things in common. In my interview with Helen in today's Wall Street Journal (go here), we touched on what life was like for her at age 14 in 1961, when she had two No. 1 hits and a No. 3 hit on the British pop charts. In 1962, more hits followed along with two teen movies, a world tour and an appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show that October. Then came a pop package tour of the U.K. in February and March 1963 called The Helen Shapiro Show, when the Beatles opened for her.

All during this time, Helen was the target of the British tabloids. They hounded her and tried every trick in the book to get into her home and invade her private life in search of dirt. Even after her family invited a reporter in for a home-cooked lunch, the writer wrote a scathing piece about her in his paper. At this point she was only 15, and she soon had to leave school. Her celebrity was too disturbing and disruptive for the rest of the grade.

On her 1963 tour, she learned that the Beatles had written Misery for her, but Columbia, her label, turned it down. When the Beatles' Please Please Me reached No. 1 on some of the British charts, the Fab Four was on par with Helen in popularity. At hotel stops, Helen's fans and the Beatles' fans were screaming for them, as they flung signed publicity stills out the windows and into clutching hands. Through the remainder of 1963, Helen continued to record hits. In October, she was on Ready Steady Go! with three of the Beatles hamming around during one of her hits.

Then Capitol in the U.S. released I Want to Hold Your Hand in December, in advance of the Beatles' February arrival in New York. By then, any hope Helen had of being part of the new British Invasion were dashed. English rock in the U.S., for the most part, meant boy bands, and Helen, like many other British female pop singers at the time, didn't make the leap.

Though Petula Clark and Dusty Springfield became huge in the States, as did Shirley Bassey to some extent thanks to the Goldfinger theme, most English pop singers weren't part of the Invasion. Cilla Black, Sandie Shaw and Lulu had hits here, but they never really became household names. Others on the long list include Alma Cogan, Anita Harris, Billie Davis, Carol Deene, Jackie Trent, Julie Grant, Julie Rogers, Kathy Kirby, Susan Maughan and Twinkle. And those were just the ones who were highly popular in Britain. The less-popular list is even longer.

Part of Helen's problem was that once the Beatles hit, she was considered yesterday's news. To the record-buyer, she was the pre-Beatles teen with the bee-hive hairstyle and songs about not wanting to be treated like a child. By 1964, girls in the U.S. had grown up to a point where young adult males were hot. As Helen confessed to me in London, "I had a huge crush on John during that tour, even though he was married at the time. All of the Beatles were older and much more confident than boys of our age."

Like Winehouse, Helen was Jewish and had refused to change her last name, though she was under pressure to do so. Also like Winehouse, Helen had a prematurely deep voice and a deep and enduring love for jazz. In her later years, Helen sang extensively with English trumpet star Humphrey Lyttelton.

The difference, of course, is that Helen didn't have the same kind of runaway fame that Winehouse did in the U.S. Also, the British media was a bit gentler and kinder toward Helen—it was a different era. And Helen was more grounded, surrounded by family that actually provided her with a safe haven. As she told me in London, "I lived at home for a long time while I was recording hits. This helped me with my confidence and I avoided things that would have been bad for me. If I had made it in America, I might not be here today."

When Winehouse died on Sunday, I emailed Helen for her thoughts:

"I was very shocked and extremely sad to hear about Amy's death. I never met her, but she grew up close to the area in London that I did. I actually know a relative of hers. Occasionally, press people have drawn similarities between us, citing background, looks, and voice. I suppose because of that, I somehow felt a connection with her. Her passing is a great tragedy. She was a great talent."

JazzWax clip:Here's Helen with the Beatles in October 1963, just months before the Invasion. Harboring a secret crush on John, Helen's expression says it all as she walks away from him and on to Ringo...

July 26, 2011

Georgie Auld should be better known today, but he isn't. In his prime, he was a furiously swinging tenor saxophonist and leader of some pretty hip bop bands of the '40s. Today, the late reedman is probably best known for appearing in Martin Scorsese's New York, New York (1977) as bandleader Frankie Harte, working as a consultant to help Robert De Niro with his sax fingering and dubbing all the sax solos. That is, if you remember this marginal film. [Pictured: Georgie Auld, circa August 1947]

Auld (born John Altwerger) started out on alto sax in his home town of Toronto, Canada—but when he heard Coleman Hawkins, he switched to the tenor. Auld traveled to New York in the '30s and was playing in Manhattan in 1936 when Bunny Berigan hired him for his band. As a result, Auld is on Berigan's famed recording of I Can't Get Started in August 1937.

In late 1938, Auld joined Artie Shaw's big band and was featured on hot solos. When Shaw abruptly quit his own band in November 1939 for a sabbatical in Mexico, Auld took over the leadership slot. But Auld lacked sufficient charisma to hold the band together and it folded within three months.

In Tom Nolan's Three Chords for Beauty's Sake, his biography of Artie Shaw, Nolan quotes Shaw on Auld:

"George was disappointed he wasn't called on to speak [at Buddy's funeral] and was very angry. 'You're fulla shit.' That's all he could say! Chagrin! What—I dunno, he identified himself with me, and he never could quite make it, as a star, you know, whatever it was. Angered him. Infuriated him. When I quit the music, man [in 1939], I gave him the band; I gave him my book. He could not make it work. He didn't have the quality that it took. Certain people don't."

After Shaw, Auld went on to play with Jan Savitt, Benny Goodman and a revived Shaw band before he entered the Army in 1941. After being discharged in 1944, Auld led his own orchestra—a band that included trumpeter Sonny Berman and saxophonist Al Cohn.

In 1951 Auld put together a terrific quintet with Frank Rosolino (tb), Lou Levy (p), Max Bennett (b) and Tiny Kahn (d), who wrote the arrangements.

Auld was featured on a range of excellent albums in the '50s, mostly for EmArcy, but he also spent too much time recording dreadful albums for Coral that included a miserable choir. Auld was always a solid player, but some of his best moments came between bebop's emergence and its triumph in the late '40s.

JazzWax tracks: Auld's 1946, 1949 and 1951 bands are all on Georgie Auld 1946-1951 (Classics France), which is here but out of print. There's also an offering at iTunes that features Auld's 1949 band. The hidden album is called By George! Georgie Auld & His Orchestra. There are 10 tracks: So What's New? Sweet Thing, Nashooma, Lullaby in Rhythm, They Didn't Believe Me, Blues for Me, Flying Home, So What Can Be New, You Got Me Jumpin' and Mo-Mo. As best I can tell, it's an Armed Forces Radio Service date recorded live at Hollywood's Empire Room in February 1949.

July 25, 2011

Last week, Wrecking Crew drummer Hal Blaine sent along a fabulous YouTube clip of Wanna Buy a Record? The rare 35-minute film was made by Capitol Records in 1951 to explain how records were made and why they cost what they did (85 cents at the time). The film was for promotional purposes only and featured Mel Blanc [pictured] and Billy May along with executive Alan Livingston and assorted Capitol stars. The Capitol Recording Studios featured in the film was at 5515 Melrose Ave. and predated the famed Capitol Tower, which was completed in 1956.

A little historical perspective. In 1951, the so-called speed wars between Columbia and RCA had just ended a year earlier. Between 1948 and 1950, the record industry was in turmoil. After Columbia introduced the 33 1/3 LP, RCA refused to adapt the new format—despite Columbia's offer to give RCA the technology. Instead, RCA launched the 45-rpm in 1949 to compete with Columbia's LP. For more than a year, the industry and, more important, the consumer, had no idea which format would win. In the process, record sales plummeted as consumers did what consumers do: They stuck with what they already knew—the 78 rpm. [Record-store customer Billy May gets slapped around by store owner Mel Blanc]

But as RCA started to lose stars from its highly lucrative classical division to Columbia, the label accepted the LP while the 45-rpm was used for singles but largely ignored by Columbia. This Capitol film is important because you see the company at a crucial moment in its history trying to make a case for the new vinyl records of both speeds.

By the way, Alan Livingston [pictured] would sign Frank Sinatra two years later—before the company was sold to Britain's EMI in 1955. In 1963, Livingston also would be forced to release a record by an English quartet under pressure from the company's London-based owners. That quartet was the Beatles.

Capitol's president at the time was Glenn Wallichs, who had started his career in 1940 by founding Music City, shown in the early frames of the film. Also of note, Wallichs had assumed day-to-day control of Capitol by January 1951, with Johnny Mercer merely a holder of stock at that point and Buddy DeSylva, the third founding parter, deceased since July 1950, with his family holding his controlling interest.

Mel Blanc, of course, is the voice of Bugs Bunny and many other cartoon characters. Billy May was one of Capitol's leading big band arrangers.

Based on what you're about to see, it's inconceivable to me how how Capitol or any other record company could produce large numbers of records given the arduous manufacturing process. But they did.

By the way, I sense that all the extras are extra special. Some of them I recognize, but I'm sure many of you would love to contribute Comments identifying them.

July 24, 2011

Amy Winehouse (1983-2011). I can't remember exactly when I first heard Amy Winehouse, but it was before she hit the U.S. The song was Stronger Than Me, and I think I caught the track in 2004, when I was listening to the BBC1 online. At the time, I flipped. It was a mash of jazz instincts, pop smarts and soulful delivery. So I ordered a few copies of Frank, her first CD, from the U.K., and gave them to friends. Yesterday, Winehouse died in London at age 27. What a loss.

Winehouse's appeal rested in her ability to take what she had learned studying singers like Dinah Washington, Sarah Vaughan, Etta James and Ronnie Spector and fusing them into a new form of English house-soul in the 2000s. Her impact was instant, and later many British artists adapted her r&b vocal sass and did well with it.

When Winehouse finally broke into the U.S. market in 2007 with the CD Back to Black and the prophetically titled hit Rehab, she was a runaway sensation, winning five Grammys in 2008. But by then, the end was already beginning. Visa troubles kept her from attending the Grammys in the U.S., a costly error. And when the camera hit her in London for a live acceptance, she was mystifyingly unintelligible, a terrified pop mess caught in the headlights and twisting her hair. A celebrity disaster before she had even made the celebrity ding cycle of failed marriages, mass adoptions, club dust-ups and cancelled TV shows.

But you sensed there was more going on than just dysfunctional drug dependence. There appeared to be chronic self-doubt, rabid insecurity and bite-the-bit stage fright at work. She was really a club artist, an introvert forced into the harsh light and then blinded by it all. Hers was the kind of success that hits people who wish for one big thing but when that thing springs to life, they are frightened but find that the wish can't be taken back.

Winehouse wound up in and out of rehab, unable or unwilling to parlay her good fortune into a third album or leverage her name-recognition into megastardom. In the meantime, British singer Adele adapted Winehouse's coarse and pained jazz-pop style and filled the vacuum as Winehouse floundered. Upon hearing Adele for the first time, I thought it was Winehouse's next album.

Soon, it became clear that Winehouse was a total wipeout. The final straw came during her most recent concert tour of Eastern Europe, where her disturbingly poor performances and intoxicated stage presence earned her boos, sending her packing back to London and seclusion.

I think only jazz fans can truly understand Amy Winehouse's path of self-destruction. With Winehouse, something wasn't quite right from the start, something that couldn't and wouldn't be controlled. A sensitivity that yellowed when exposed. She was somebody she didn't want to be, and once she realized that persona was non-refundable, she dropped a brick on the gas pedal and hopped in the back seat. As a result, the best and the brightest couldn't manage her or wouldn't. Little by little, she became less dependable and less marketable.

Winehouse seemed to have so much more to record—if she had been with the right producers. What a shame she wound up in the wrong hands—or that stronger hands couldn't reach out to keep her from her own lunacy. Winehouse will be missed—for what she recorded and what she could have been.

If you're unfamiliar with Winehouse, here's an early video of her singing Teach Me Tonight...

Billy Taylor. The late pianist who died last December would have been 90 years old today. In tribute, Bret Primack, who was close to Billy, recently produced a touching and powerful mini documentary here...

Jeff Atterton, RIP. When I worked at Sam Goody on Third Avenue and 43d St. in New York over a summer break in the early '70s, I had the pleasure of being schooled by salesmen Harry Lim and Jeff Atterton. Harry had been the famed producer at Keynote Records back in the early '40s. Atterton was an English chap who knew his stuff and was fond of vests and yellow Schwann catalogs. [Undated photo of Milt Gabler, left, and Jeff Atterton]

"I think older New York jazz record collectors would like to know that Jeff Atterton recently passed away. For many years, the tall, lanky Englishman was the resident jazz record guru at the Sam Goody store on West 49th Street in Manhattan, an unmistakable presence as soon as you walked through the door. As anyone who ever chatted him up will remember, he had a droll, rather ironic sense of humor about the state of the world and a great passion for jazz, which he seemed to feel made up for everything else that was lacking.

"Jeff was always enormously helpful to the many customers who sought him out, locating obscurities for advanced collectors and steering neophytes toward the good stuff and away from the crap. When Goody went under, Jeff moved over to the King Karol shop on West 42nd Street, which wasn't his kind of place at all, then down to the more congenial J&R jazz record store, located at that time a block behind the main drag that houses the rest of the J&R empire.

"Among Jeff's friends were many of the musicians whose playing he loved. PeeWee Russell gave him some of his oil paintings, which with characteristic generosity Jeff bequeathed to the Institute of Jazz Studies. When I was working on my biography of Benny Goodman Jeff voluntarily set me up for an interview with his old pal Jess Stacy, which was a lovely experience for me and very helpful to my book. He will be missed."

CD discovery of the week. If you dig male big-band singers in the Sinatra vernacular, trumpeter-vocalist Joe Gransden does a solid job on Live in Concert at Cafe 290: It's a Beautiful Thing (Cafe 290). The band that Gransden leads is ferocious, and his pipes are strong enough to soar above the roaring sections. Many of the songs will be familiar to you: Hello Young Lovers, I Believe in You, One Mint Julep, What Kind of Fool Am I and so on. Some of these arrangements clearly have been transcribed from famed recordings—such as Quincy Jones' I Believe in You and One Mint Julep. All in all, finger-snappin' stuff. You'll find this one at iTunes or here.

Oddball album cover of the week. Poor Julie London. I don't think there was another talented jazz vocalist who was so pathetically exploited by record labels than her. In fact, there are so many covers with London cast as loose, available and worse, it's hard to choose for this feature. But in coming weeks, I will feature others that are even more egregious. For now, let's call this the benchmark.

July 22, 2011

West Coast jazz to me is the sound of slow California sunsets, nifty cars and the Pacific surf. It's feverishly contrapuntal, optimistic and catchy. It's not better or worse than East Coast jazz, just different music for another mood. Having spent weeks in California on the beaches south of Los Angeles listening to West Coast jazz recordings of the early '50s, I totally get it. There's a lot of the warm environment in those tunes.

I date West Coast jazz back to Shorty Rogers' recordings of Didi and Sam and the Lady from his Modern Sounds album for Capitol in October 1951—though his arrangement of A Mile Down the Highway with June Christy a year earlier could be a starting point as well. In both cases, the sound is unmistakably excited and relaxed, with different instruments sliding in and out on gripping melodies.

If you have the same fondness for this music as I do, you need to know about the Los Angeles Jazz Institute (LAJI) headed by Ken Poston (go here). Ken is plugged into all things West Coast and knows everyone who was and is connected with the sound and movement. The concerts he stages out there are always stunning. Just look at his October lineup on the LAJI's home page linked above (scroll down to the listing).

As for the LAJI's mission...

"The Los Angeles Jazz Institute houses and maintains one of the largest jazz archives in the world. All styles and eras are represented with a special emphasis on the preservation and documentation of jazz in Southern California. The overall mission of the Jazz Institute is to preserve, promote and perpetuate the heritage of this important American art form."

Membership is pretty cool. Not only do you get to choose a CD from the Institute's collection of rare West Coast jazz but there also are discounts on events. What's more, your dues are tax deductible, since the LAJI is a 501c3, tax exempt, public benefit corporation. (For membership information, go here.)

If you're choosing CDs, the Shorty Rogers albums from the Rendezvous Ballroom in September 1952 are precious. They feature June Christy and Hampton Hawes. Her version of Jeepers Creepers on Vol. 2 may be her best vocal rendition of this song.

I'm a lifelong New Yorker, but when summer rolls around, I pop on Johnny Richards, Dave Pell, Lennie Niehaus, Russ Freeman or Shorty Rogers, and I'm transported back to my Walkman strolls on Huntington, Hermosa and Redondo beaches in the '80s.

JazzWax clip: To get you in the mood, here's Shorty Rogers and His Giants' recording of Over the Rainbow and Popo from 1951. The group: Shorty Rogers (tp), John Graas (fhr), Gene Englund (tu), Art Pepper (as), Jimmy Giuffre (ts), Hampton Hawes (p), Don Bagley (b) and Shelly Manne (d)...

July 21, 2011

For those who grew up in the LP era, the jazz album cover had special meaning. Back when record stores dotted the urban and suburban landscape, you could spend hours flipping through the cardboard squares admiring the cover artwork before flipping them over to read the liner notes. The cover was always the big thrill, the juicer that led to the purchase. One of the earliest pioneers of the art-marketing genre was Alex Steinweiss, who died on July 17 at age 94. I spoke with fabled producer George Avakian and legendary album-cover designer Paul Bacon yesterday about Steinweiss. More with them in a moment. [All album covers by Alex Steinweiss, who is pictured above]

Starting in the late 1930s and early '40s, multiple 78-rpms were slipped into volumes that looked like photo albums and sold as a single package. Originally, the album was a classical concept born out of necessity, since symphonies and operas could not be captured in full on one shellac 78-rpm disc. Before the 33 1/3-rpm LP was introduced by Columbia in 1948, which also was a classical invention, jazz was rarely given the album treatment. The pre-1948 market's consumers simply weren't wealthy enough to afford the cost. But Columbia's marketers eventually decided that jazz was special enough that "the story of jazz" volumes could be marketed to classical consumers.

From 1940 onward, the job of the jazz album was twofold: It had to graphically stimulate curiosity by the consumer. Then it had to cause the consumer to spend more than they had planned when they entered the store. If a cover was successful, consumers felt that what they were about to buy was an exciting find and that the purchase would make them hipper and more knowledgeable than their friends.

Steinweiss understood the delight factor and competitive nature of the jazz consumer early on. Though by today's standards his jazz covers may seem static or stiff, they were a major break in their day from the types of literal art used to sell records. In Steinweiss' hands, an album cover became propaganda, a call to arms that idolized the artist like a folk mural. He understood that jazz had a mystique, an aura that only jazz fans understood, and that to connect with the consumer's heart and wallet, the strings of that mystique had to be plucked just right.

Yesterday, I spoke briefly with George Avakian, 92, who produced his first jazz album for Decca in 1940 and joined Columbia in 1948 as director of the label's new pop LP division (go here to read my interview):

"I arrived at Columbia after Alex did, of course. I worked with him and remember Alex as a cheerful, happy guy—full of jokes and always pleasant to be around. Alex also was a highly innovative person. He was the first art director I ever worked with and still remains the very best.

"The power of Alex's work was in its simplicity. He was very direct. You didn’t have to wonder what he was driving at in his covers. His graphics weren't complicated. Many of the covers he did were somewhat abstract, but they got the message across. [Columbia Records President] Ted Wallerstein understood what Alex was doing and encouraged him. Alex was a real pioneer of the album cover concept and what those covers had to do for the artists and the label. Many of his covers were for classical albums, but they always entertained you without compromising the music's elite status."

Graphic designer Paul Bacon, 87, was an album-cover pioneer in the LP age. His covers for Blue Note and Riverside modernized the feel, bringing them in step with the new school of jazz artists emerging in the late 1940s and '50s (go here to read my interview):

"Believe it or not, I never actually met Alex. I know it sounds like all of the album cover designers back then lived in the same apartment but we didn't [laughs]. Alex was one of my graphic heroes and inspirations. I first became aware of him when I was hanging around with my loose gang of jazz fans in Newark, N.J. When we pooled our coins, we could afford those 78-rpm albums that Columbia issued with Steinweiss covers. It was my first contact with superior graphic art.

"When I saw Alex's Louis Armstrong and Earl 'Fatha' Hines album, I wanted to do that, too. His covers weren’t reverential, which was a big break from the style popular back then.

"Alex's covers were always terrifically well deisgned. They were organic. He used one image, one device that worked, and he integrated album titles beautifully. Each cover was like a poster. The concepts were well thought out, and they always had a clever gimmick. They appeared as though he had conceived of the device first and them made everything else fit into it.

"From the consumer's perspective, his covers were always very satisfying. You could spot one from 10 feet away. They had this feeling. I don’t remember ever finding fault with a Steinweiss cover. What he did always struck me as being right on.

"The other guys designing covers at the time were good and, periodically, better than good. Part of Alex's grace was that his covers didn't say "Louis Armstrong" or Earl 'Fatha' Hines. It was 'Louis and Earl.' The covers accepted that the market was hip and would know who the musicians were. Most jazz fans I knew never called Armstrong 'Satchmo.' He was 'Louis,' and Alex got this.

"Ultimately, a jazz cover had to motivate the person with a wallet to want to hear what was on the inside of the cover. The goal was to say something pictorially about the musician in a way that was highly entertaining to the eye. You had to make a clever connection with the consumer and treat the consumer as a smart insider.

"I've always found that buyers respond to clever and enjoy being amused and in on the secret. With recognition comes gratification. Alex understood all of this. His covers were like a wink."

JazzWax pages:There's a terrific book, Alex Steinweiss: The Inventor of the Modern Album Cover, by Steven Heller and Kevin Reagan. Go here.

Want to see what the book looks like inside? Go here and click on the book image on the right when you land at the site. You'll be able to turn the pages with your cursor.

July 20, 2011

In today's Wall Street Journal (go here), I write about the Jimmie Lunceford Orchestra and a fabulous new box set from Mosaic Records: The Complete Jimmie Lunceford Decca Sessions, featuring material recorded between 1934 and 1945. What makes this box special is that you get to hear swing's ascension before Benny Goodman gave it a mass-market spin in 1935 with the help of arranger Fletcher Henderson.

With this new box, you also get to hear the maturation of an astonishing list of arrangers, including alto saxophonist Willie Smith, pianist Eddie Wilcox, trombonist Eddie Durham, trumpeter Sy Oliver and trumpeter Gerald Wilson.

Gerald is believed to be the last remaining member of the pre-World War II Lunceford band, the one that gave Duke Ellington a run for its money and all but invented modern swing syncopation. Lunceford's band and strutting arrangements put the finger-waving and foot-tapping in orchestral jazz, not to mention the visual excitement.

Here are the outtakes from my conversation with Gerald Wilson, 92, who just released Legacy, a new CD, and who will appear with his orchestra at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York from September 28 through October 2:

Marc Myers: Did you always want to play with Jimmie Lunceford’s band while growing up in Mississippi?Gerald Wilson: Oh yes, I dreamed about joining Jimmie Lunceford’s band ever since I was a little kid. Before we moved to Detroit, I had attended Manassas High School in Memphis, the same school where Lunceford had been a teacher. So I knew all about him from a young age. He was a legend.

MM: When did you first hear Lunceford’s band live?GW: Lunceford would come through Detroit three or four times a year to play the Arcadia and Graystone ballrooms. The first time he came through, I introduced myself to all the guys in the band. Each time the band would come, I’d push my way backstage. It got so that Sy Oliver [pictured] put a chair next to him and asked me to come up and sit and watch what was going on. I’d just sit there beside him. I could already read and play trumpet solos, so it was exciting and a real confidence-builder. But I never dreamed I’d get a call from him later on in life.

MM: Lunceford’s trumpet sections were always strong.GW: Jimmie’s band started the stuff where the trumpet would be up above a high C. Tommy Stevenson could play the high A above the high C. There weren’t too many guys who could do that. Louis Armstrong only went to an F-sharp.

MM: Did you attend music school?GW: Yes, I went to Cass Tech, a music high school in Detroit. At the time, the music school at Cass Tech [pictured] was second only to Juilliard in New York and had two jazz bands. You couldn’t get in unless you knew how play. I had learned to play in Memphis growing up. My mother started me out on the piano at age 4.

MM: When did you get the call to join Lunceford?GW: In 1939, I was in Dayton, Ohio, playing in Chick Carter’s band. I got a telegram at the black YMCA, where I was staying. It said, “If you would like to join my band, call this number.” It was signed Jimmie Lunceford.

MM: Did you call?GW: Not right away [laughs]. That night we were battling Erskine Hawkins’ band [pictured]. I knew all of the guys in Hawkins’ band. I was excited about Lunceford’s offer but decided to wait.

MM: Why?GW: Chick Carter’s band could really play. We were coming on. There were really great players in there and we were battling Erskine Hawkins. But at the dance, Sammy Lowe, Hawkins’ lead trumpeter and arranger, said “Hey Gerald, I heard you got a telegram from Lunceford today.” I told him, “Yeah, but I’m going to stay with this band.” Sammy looked at me as though I were crazy.

MM: What did he say?GW: He said, “Gerald, the band you’re in is breaking up tonight.” I was stunned. I said, “That’s impossible.” He said, “If you don’t believe me, ask Ray Perry, who played saxophone.” When I asked Ray, he said, “Yeah, we’re breaking up. I’m already packed.” [Pictured: Chick Carter]

MM: What did you do?GW: I ran to the telephone as fast as I could in the hall [laughs]. It was after midnight, but I got Lunceford on the phone. I said, “Yes, I’d like to join your band.” He told me to go to the Dayton train station after the dance, that there would be money there and a ticket to New York. He said trumpeter Eddie Tompkins would meet me at the station in New York.

MM: What happened when you arrived in New York?GW: I went from the station straight to Lunceford’s tailor to get measured for seven uniforms. Each one had a different meaning. One was a morning suit with striped tie and crepe vest for early performances. We had to play seven shows on the weekend, each one lasting an hour and a half before a short film would come on and give us a break. There was no audition. I went straight onto the band that night.

MM: What did you think of the band?GW: Oh, I was amazed. When I joined, they were on top. The band was doing the Coca-Cola broadcasts from New York. Eddie Wilcox was a brilliant piano player and arranger-composer who could play classical and jazz. He wrote so well he composed with an ink pen. Drummer Jimmy Crawford was from Memphis. Mose Allen was on bass and Al Norris was on guitar. Each of these guys knew exactly what he was doing. Enormous confidence and musicianship.

MM: What was Jimmie Lunceford like?GW: He was such a nice person. We couldn’t curse very hard around him at all. We might say “damn” or “hell.” But that was about it around this guy. He didn’t smoke or drink, and he was a college graduate. He had studied with Paul Whiteman’s father. So everyone had respect for him.

MM: Were those stage routines difficult?GW: We never just stood or sat still. We’d be playing one of Sy’s arrangements, like For Dancers Only. We’d be playing that. It was a great number in the first place. It’s moving, and the trumpets are playing like mad. All three of us are twirling trumpets with our right hand and snatching it with our left. Trumpeter Paul Webster showed me how to do it. I had tried it a couple of times. I threw it up, twirled and snatched it. But I had to work on it a little bit.

MM: Was it easy to learn?GW: One of the first times I tried it during a performance, I dropped my trumpet. I must have been the only one to ever do so. It was at the Loews State Theater in New York. I’m twirling, and all of a sudden my horn was on the stage. I went and got it. It was all dented up. Fortunately I had a backup. Lunceford never said a thing to me about that, but it didn’t happen again.

MM: Was there a big rivalry between Lunceford and Duke Ellington’s band?GW: Not really. Everyone was friends. They made it sound like there was, to sell tickets and records. I actually played in Duke’s band on two occasions: During a tour from Los Angeles to San Francisco in 1954 and 1955 and on Anatomy of a Murder in 1959. Lunceford and Duke’s bands were the tops back in the ‘30s, with Duke’s band rated No. 1 and Lunceford’s No. 2.

MM: What was special about Ellington?GW: Duke had something new that no one else had. He had different harmonic things that he put together that was like jazz and classical combined. He played a great piano. He was in a class by himself. Like Art Tatum, Duke’s style couldn’t be imitated. When I joined Lunceford, we’d hang out with Ellington’s band. This thing about a rivalry was overblown. We all loved each other.

MM: Willie Smith wound up with Ellington.GW: That’s right. Duke had always been trying to pull Willie away from the band and finally did in 1951. Johnny Hodges told Smith he was the lead alto man, which Willie was fine with. Willie could go up five notes above Hodges on the alto sax. Duke’s band loved that he was there.

MM: There were bop influences in the Lunceford band while you were there in the early ‘40s. Did you know Dizzy Gillespie?GW: I met Dizzy in 1937. Dizzy was with Edgar Hayes’ band at the time. Dizzy came to Detroit and stayed there for about three months. We’d talk about harmony all the time. I knew Dizzy was working on stuff that was going to change things.

MM: Your composition and arrangement of Hi Spook is quite a barn-burner. What was the origin of the name?GW: I composed and arranged it when we played in Seattle. There was a radio show there called The Spook Club that came on at midnight. Jimmie honored the show with this song, with hopes of getting it played a lot, like the theme. My goal was to get as much excitement across as possible in that song.

MM: How did Yard Dog Mazurka come about? GW: There was a young white kid who wrote for the Lunceford band named Roger Segure. He wrote for a bunch of bands in New York at the time. One evening in 1941 I was over to his house in New York. I had started an arrangement for Stompin’ at the Savoy. I told him I wanted him to hear my riff. He said, “Play it for me.” I played it and he said, “Wow, that’s some introduction. What are you going to do with it?” He said to complete the AABA form by repeating the eight bars and adding a bridge. He said by doing so, the song would belong to me.

MM: What did you do?GW: I played what I had come up with on the piano, and he loved it. Roger had given me such great advice that the next day when I saw him I said, “You know, if you hadn’t told me to do that, I wouldn’t have written that number. I would have written Stompin’ at the Savoy. I’m going to give you half the credit on the arrangement.”

MM: Are you happy you did?GW: Yes. I also let him name it. He was Jewish. I have no idea what a mazurka is [laughs].

MM: Ray Wetzel of Stan Kenton’s band used your riff for Intermission Riff in 1945.GW: Yes. When I first heard it, I felt really bad. My first thought was to sue him. But I had a lawyer friend who told me that the copyright laws allowed him to do it, since he only used a piece of it. [Photo of Ray Wetzel in 1947 or 1948 by William P. Gottlieb]

MM: Did Kenton ever say anything to you?GW: No. The fact that Ray and Stan picking up my song didn’t stay with me. I liked Stan and I enjoyed Intermission Riff. I first met Stan in 1941. I had first heard his band in L.A. in 1940. He had a nice little thing going. I think the essence of the sound was the rhythm, how you played the songs. There were a lot of dotted eighth and sixteenth notes. Add the syncopation and you have that sound. Later I wrote for Kenton’s neophonic orchestra in L.A., in the ‘60s.

MM: A lot of people left the Lunceford band in August 1942, including you. GW: I was drafted and put in my notice with Lunceford. I didn’t say anything to [trumpeter] Snooky [Young] about it. When Lunceford announced that I’d be leaving the band, Snooky was surprised. Snooky asked me what happened. I told him about the draft. He said, “I’m going to leave, too.” He also put in his notice. We left the band together.

MM: Looking back, was Lunceford a good experience? GW: Oh yes. Lunceford was so good to me. He liked to fly airplanes. I used to go up with him. We also had a baseball team. Jimmy Crawford was the catcher. Lunceford was a hell of a pitcher. I was Jimmie’s catcher, to warm him up, but I played center field on the team during games. He was a great guy.

MM: Give me an example?GW: When my father died, Jimmie immediately got me an airline ticket to fly home to Memphis. Then I flew back to Washington after the funeral to catch up with the band. Lunceford did that instantly. He got to it right then. But he’d do nice things all the time. I never saw him lose his temper. He was always in a good mood.

Gerald Wilson's new CD is Legacy (Mack Avenue), featuring an astonishing band made up of leading orchestral jazz musicians. The album divides into two suites—a classical tribute and Yes Chicago. Both are remarkable for their breadth and depth. You'll find Legacyhere.

JazzWax clips:Here's Gerald Wilson's Yard Dog Mazurka for Jimmie Lunceford in 1941. Compare it to Stan Kenton's Intermission Riff (1945), one of the most brazen lifts in jazz history...

About

Marc Myers writes regularly for The Wall Street Journal and is author of "Anatomy of a Song" (Grove) and "Why Jazz Happened." Founded in 2007, JazzWax is a two-time winner of the Jazz Journalists Association's best blog award.